Washington Post on the verge of buying Digg?

By Gene Ryan Briones on 05/01/2012 00:41 PST

Another phase awaits for the popular news aggregator Digg. It appears that Digg is not done yet. The Washington Post is rumored to be on the verge of hiring the tech team of Digg, if not buying the entire company. Unfortunately, the publisher’s move is yet to be revealed. There have been reports that Digg’s tech team will be working on the publisher’s Social Reader Facebook app.

Digg started in 2004 when Kevin Rose founded the social bookmarking site. There have been rumors too that the Post might acquire the whole ship. Digg has been considered by many as one of the sites that has led to the expansion of the web 2.0 era. Google once courted Digg but eventually walked away in 2008 after a series of failed negotiations.

So, if the Washington Post is really buying Digg, or at least its tech team, then Digg will not be shutting down anytime soon. Perhaps slowly, yet surely. But one thing is for certain, once the deal is finalized, the Washington Post will have saved the sinking ship. As to how much the Post is willing to pay, the price, unfortunately, has not been confirmed. But judging from Digg’s current value at 45 million, the final price should be interesting.

We can still remember how popular Digg was a few years ago. If we are talking about traffic, Digg had lots of it. It still has a respectable traffic now (around 4.3 monthly U.S. visitors), but not a lot compared to tis glory days. Alexa has ranked Digg at the 186th spot with competitor Reddit surpassing Digg at the 125th place this month. Still, Digg has yet to find a way to utilize its brand and traffic.